


©■ 



HONGKONG AND CANTON 



THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE 



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UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 



HONGKONG 
AND CANTON 



A Part of Underwood & Underwood's 
Stereoscopic Tour through China 



Personally conducted by 
JAMES RIC ALTON 






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UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD 



New York 
Ottawa, Kansas 



London 
Toronto, Canada 



THE U8RA8Y OF 
CONGRESS, 

Two Cores Received 

SEP. 22 1902 

CoWTWbHT EWTBV 

C«-ASs feJOCd. No. 
COFf 3. 



Copyright, 1902 

By UNDERWOOD & UNDERWOOD 

New York and London 

(Entered at Stationers' Hall) 



Stereographs copyrighted in the United States and foreign countries 



MAP SYSTEM 

Patented in the United States, August 21, 1900 
Patented in Great Britain, March 22, 1900 ' 
Patented in France, March 26, 1900. S. G. D. G. 
Switzerland, Patent Nr. 21,211 
Patents ap'p^i#d 'for -in other countries 

* . -! « « ' \ 



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All rights reserved 



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1 



WHERE ARE WE GOING? 

The ancient empires of Egypt, Phoenicia, Assyria. 
Babylon and Greece, all passed away. One venerable 
contemporary of those old empires alone remains to con- 
nect the present with the hoary dawn of history ; and this 
solitary antique among the nations of to-day we are 
now to visit through the stereoscope. Exaggerated 
claims to the antiquity of Chinese history, identifies the 
first dynasty, that of Fohi, with Noah of the Bible ; but 
more reliable native historians do not attempt to place 
authentic records earlier than noo B. C. This was dur- 
ing what is known as the Chow dynasty, covering the 
period when Homer, Hesiod, Zoroaster, David and 
Solomon lived and when the pyramids of Egypt were 
built. At this time Roman history was mythical and 
fabulous, and yet Pa-out-she, a Chinese scholar, had 
completed a dictionary containing forty thousand char- 
acters. 

The mariner's compass was known to the Chinese 
at this early period. History also records that Fong, 
a ruler of this time, built a Tartar city in five days ; that 
permanent political institutions were established as early 
as 800 B. C. 

When we remember that one of the oldest and most 
progressive among those ancient empires exists to-day 
not essentially altered in her customs, laws and institu- 
tions, what an interesting study is therein offered to us ! 

We can see Egypt under the Khedive, but not under 
Rameses; we have seen Italy under Victor Emmanuel; 



IO CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

but we cannot see Rome under Julius Caesar, nor Greece 
in the time of Pericles. We know Palestine under the 
Sultan; but we cannot behold Judea under Solomon. 
It is now possible for us to look upon the dreary plains 
of the Euphrates; but we can only read of the splendor 
of Babylon under Nebuchadnezzar and the world-encom- 
passing Macedonian Empire under Alexander the Great. 
To see life as it existed in any part of the world three 
thousand years ago is a rare privilege. Yet to see China 
is to turn back the wheels of time and gaze into the 
dawn of human history. We delight to stroll through a 
museum of antiquities and look at isolated objects that 
carry us back to former ages. In China, a veritable 
world of antiquities, relatively associated, moral, social, 
literary, political and industrial, are offered for our in- 
spection. The word change was not in Pa-out-she's dic- 
tionary, and China under the Manchus is China under 
Chow. 

Nor is it altogether her antiquity that offers so inter- 
esting a subject for study; she is at this time a puzzle 
among the nations, and promises to be, in the future, 
a gigantic and mysterious force. During the recent 
Boxer uprising, we have witnessed this oldest of the 
world's empires, proud of her history and tenacious of 
her time-honored civilization, hurling back the encroach- 
ments of modernism. None of the nations of this age 
are so little known — so misunderstood, yet so relent- 
lessly assailed; but when she learns her own latent 
strength and how to use it, the aggressive cupidity of the 
Occident may hesitate to assail her. 

It has been my privilege to visit many countries in 
different parts of the world ; twice I have wandered over 
portions of the " Flowery Kingdom," and I do not hesi- 
tate to assure those who are to follow me on this jour- 



HOW ARE WE GOING? II 

ney of observation that nowhere over the whole world 
could we see so much of the past which is still in the 
present, and so many differences in conditions of life 
from what we are accustomed to see in our home sur- 
roundings. 

How Arc We Going? 

In previous journeys I have seen China with my nat- 
ural eyes ; during this itinerary we shall see, so to speak, 
with our stereoscopic eyes; and having used both these 
media of sightseeing, I wish to state to those not al- 
ready familiar with the genuine realism of the stereo- 
graph, that its power to produce vivid and permanent 
impressions on the mind is scarcely less than that of 
one's natural vision; that it gives accuracy in size, pro- 
portion, distance and perspective; and, besides these 
things, it gives a vivid and fascinating effect that almost 
equals reality in producing pleasurable sensations and in 
giving a sort of mental emphasis which fixes all impres- 
sions. 

The stereograph tells no lies ; it is binocular — it gives 
the impression that each eye would receive on the 
ground, affording essentially perfect vision and giving 
the most realistic ocular perception attainable in the 
photographic art. The telescope brings distant objects 
apparently near; the microscope magnifies the appear- 
ance of objects; the stereopticon or magic lantern mag- 
nifies images that have been produced by monocular 
vision (a single lens) — all more or less deceptive, and 
showing objects only on a single plane, while the stereo- 
graph virtually projects solid figures into space before 
us. 

Furthermore, sight is our cleverest sense in the ac- 
quisition of knowledge; to see is to know. All princi- 



12 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

pies of instruction are being more and more based on a 
recognition of this truism. Any art, device, or princi- 
ple best calculated to bring objects clearly and truthfully 
before the eyes is, therefore, surely the best means of im- 
parting instruction. 

If you cannot visit a country and see it as the traveller 
does, do the next best thing and see it through that mir- 
acle of realism, the stereograph. To make this possible 
I have spent a year in the land through which you are 
now to accompany me. 

It might be of interest to you to know that the begin- 
ning of my itinerary in China follows the conclusion of 
a year spent in the Philippine Islands, which was marked 
by all the vicissitudes and experiences of our flag-plant- 
ing in the Orient. When I reacked Manila, scarcely had 
the clanking of the anchor chains ceased when all on 
board our ship were startled by the sharp popping of 
Krags and Mausers only a few miles away. This was 
soon after the first conflict between the Americans and 
the insurgents ; so that the year following embraced the 
most important events of our war in the Philippines, 
during which time I was at the front, not only in Luzon, 
but also in the southern islands of Panay and Cebu, and 
made during that time nearly nineteen hundred nega- 
tives representing war, life and industrial scenes. 

Then I proceeded to China, where I stereographed 
many hundreds of places, though time and space will 
permit us to visit through the stereoscope only a single 
hundred, and these will take us to some of the more 
important treaty ports, some of the interior cities of 
China, and then into the midst of the Boxer uprising, 
or the war of China against the world; and this, it is 
hoped, will stimulate a desire to more fully understand 
this peculiar country and her people. 



HOW TO USE STEREOGRAPHS. 13 

How to Use Stereographs. 

a. Experiment with the isliding-rack which holds the 
stereograph until you find the distance that suits the 
focus of your own eyes. This distance varies greatly 
with different people. 

b. Have a strong, steady light on the stereograph. 
This is often best obtainable by sitting with the back 
toward window or lamp, letting the light fall over one's 
shoulder on the face of the stereograph. 

c. Hold the stereograph with the hood close against 
the forehead and temples, shutting off entirely all imme- 
diate surroundings. The less you are conscious of 
things close about you the more strong will be your 
feeling of actual presence in the scenes you are studying. 

d. Make constant use of the special patented maps in 
the back of this book. First, read the statements in re- 
gard to the location on the appropriate maps, of a place 
you are about to see, so as to have already in mind, when 
you look at a given scene, just where you are and what 
is before you. After looking at the scene for the pur- 
pose of getting your location and the points of the com- 
pass clear, then read the explanatory comments on it. 
You will like to read portions of the text again after 
once looking at the stereograph, and then return to the 
view. Repeated returns to the text may be desirable 
where there are many details to be discovered. But read 
through once the text that bears on the location of each 
stereograph before taking up the stereograph in ques- 
tion; in this way you will know just where you are, and 
the feeling of actual presence on the ground will be 
much more real and satisfactory. On the maps you will 
find given the exact location of each successive stand- 
point (at the apex of the red V in most cases) and the 
exact range of the view obtained from that standpoint 



14 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

(shown in each case by the space included between the 
spreading arms of the V). The map system is admir- 
ably clear and satisfactory, giving an accurate idea of 
the progress of the journey and really making one feel, 
after a little, quite at home among the streets of Can- 
ton and Pekin. 

e. Go slowly. Tourists are often reproached for their 
nervously hurried and superficial ways of glancing at 
sights in foreign lands. Travel by means of stereo- 
graphs encourages leisurely and thoughtful enjoyment 
of whatever is worth enjoying. You may linger as long 
as you like in any particularly interesting spot, without 
fear of being left behind by train or steamboat. Indeed, 
you may return to the same spot as many times as you 
like without any thought of repeated expense! Herein 
lies one of the chief delights of China-in-stereographs — 
its easy accessibility. 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

" I felt I was right on the spot," said a man, as he leaned 
back in his chair and took his head from the stereoscope 
in which he had been looking along the crowded wharves 
of Canton. Though one might not at first think so, this 
remark was descriptive of the facts of this man's experi- 
ence. Let us see if we cannot show in a few minutes that 
this is true. 

It is now being recognized that with the proper atten- 
tion and the appropriate helps, maps, etc., a person can 
obtain in the stereoscope a definite sense or experience of 
geographical location in that part of the earth he sees rep- 
resented before him. Moreover, it is recognized that to 
get this sense of location means that we have gained not 
merely the same visual impressions in all essential respects 
that we would gain if there in body, but also part of the 
very same feelings we would experience there ; the only 
difference in the feelings being one of quantity or intensity, 
not of kind. 

But some one objects probably that this man's experi- 
ence in connection with the stereoscope could not have 
been a real experience of being in Canton, because it was 
not the real Canton before him. 

But what would be this man's object in going as a 
traveller to Canton ? As a traveller he certainly does not 



1 6 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

go to possess himself of that city's material buildings and 
streets. No traveller brings any material houses or fields 
back with him. No, the object of the traveller in going so 
far, at the cost of so much time and trouble, is to get cer- 
tain experiences of being in China. It is not the land, but 
the experiences he is after. 

This makes it clear, then, that in whatever place he 
stands he is concerned with two kinds of realities. First 
the earth, people, trees, the realities of the physical world ; 
second, the states of his consciousness, made up of 
thoughts, emotions, desires, the realities of his mental or 
soul life. The physical realities which are so often thought 
of as the only realities, serve simply as the means of in- 
ducing the states of consciousness, the mental reality, the 
end sought. 

Now it will be easier to understand how it is possible for 
us to be dealing with genuine experiences of travel in the 
stereoscope. For we can see that proving there is no real 
Canton before a man in the stereoscope does not prove 
there is no real soul state within him, no genuine experi- 
ence of being in Canton. " In the stereoscope we are 
dealing with realities, but they are the realities of soul 
states, not the realities of outward physical things." We 
cannot see too clearly, then, that on this stereoscopic tour, 
we may have real experiences of being in China.* 

But to get these experiences in connection with the rep- 



Send for our booklets, " Light on Stereographs r ' and "The Stereoscope and 
Stereoscopic Photographs," by Oliver Wendell Holmes. See article. "Extraor- 
dinary Results from Stereoscopic Photographs," in the magazine The Stereo- 
scopic Photography March, 1902. 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 1 7 

resentation of a place in the stereoscope, certain conditions 
must be observed. We must look intently and with some 
thought, not only of the location of what is before us, but 
also of what exists, though we do not see it, on our right 
or left or behind us. We certainly could not expect to 
gain a definite consciousness or experience of location in 
any place, unless we knew where that place was and what 
were its surroundings. 

To give people this knowledge in connection with the 
stereographs, a new patent map system has been devised 
and patented. There are eight maps and plans made ac- 
cording to this system which are used with the complete 
China tour. Three of these maps, Nos. 2, 3 and 4, are 
given in the back of this booklet for this special Hong- 
kong and Canton tour. 

Opening now Map No. 2, we find in outline the eastern 
part of China, from French or Indo-China on the south to 
Russian Siberia on the north. Here we can get in mind 
the route of the complete tour through China. The first 
place visited is Hongkong, found on the seacoast in the 
most southern part of the Empire. The red line, which 
starts from this city and extends toward the north along 
the seacoast, and into the country at several points, indi- 
cates the route to be followed. Noting this route more 
carefully now, we see that a person proceeds inland nearly 
a hundred miles from Hongkong to Canton ; returning, he 
goes along the coast nearly a thousand miles to Shanghai. 
From Shanghai he takes a special trip to Ningpo, over one 
hundred miles south, to Soo-chow, fifty miles northeast, 



1 8 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

then to Hankow, six hundred miles up the Yang-tse- 
Kiang. From that great inland tea port of China, he goes 
one hundred miles south into the country to Matin. On 
the return trip down the Yang-tse-Kiang, stops are made 
at Kinkow and Nankin. Reaching the coast again the 
next stop is at Cheefoo, nearly five hundred miles north. 
After Cheefoo, he proceeds directly to the seat of war 
operations of the allied nations against China, at Taku, 
Tien-tsin and Pekin. The rectangles in red on this map 
No. 2 indicate the sections of the country given on a larger 
scale on special maps. 

In this booklet we have to do only with the tour through 
Hongkong and Canton. 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 1 9 



HONGKONG. 

Let us now turn to the first of the special maps, Map 
No. 3, which covers the territory from Hongkong to Can- 
ton. Here we can tell with definiteness where we are to 
stand first in China. Find the island of Hongkong and 
the city of Victoria or of Hongkong on its northern side, 
in the lower right-hand portion of the map. Note the 
number I, in a circle, both in red, above the island of 
Hongkong. From this encircled number, a zigzag line 
runs to the apex of two red lines which branch toward the 
west, or slightly south of west. We are to stand now at 
the apex of those lines, on board a ship in the harbor of 
Hongkong, and look to that part of the city which the lines 
inclose. 

x. Britain's Rich Mart of the Orient—Hongkong from 
the Harbor. 

We are on the upper deck of one of the many steamers 
that ride at anchor in the beautiful harbor of Hongkong, 
and there we see before us in the distance, at the base of 
that dark, green mountain side, the city of Victoria, gener- 
ally called Hongkong, after the island on which it is situ- 
ated. We are not, however, yet in China. We are look- 
ing southwest and the mainland lies on our right, distant 
only a mile or two, and which we shall soon see from the 
slope of the mountain in front of us. A little to the left 



20 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

of the highest point of that somber elevation floats the 
English flag, that grand old symbol of our fatherland, on 
which, you know, the sun never sets. Only a small por- 
tion of the island is within the range of our vision. To 
our left, the city skirts the base of the rugged mountain 
for several miles ; and should we follow the winding and 
irregular coast line and complete a circuit of the island, it 
would require a journey of over thirty miles; and should 
we ascend that dark green slope by cable tramway or by 
winding shady path, a climb of two thousand feet would 
be rewarded by a panorama scarcely surpassed in the 
whole world. The summit of that mountain island is a 
maze of peaks and dells dotted everywhere with cozy villas 
of the wealthy who find there a cool and healthful retreat 
from the languishing summer heat of the city below. 

But before giving further attention to this city, let us be 
sure we have a definite consciousness of our surroundings 
in this part of the world. Remember we are looking 
somewhat south of west here. Then by reference to the 
maps we can see that the great mass of China lies off to 
our right, stretching away for over two thousand miles. 
Directly before us, six hundred miles distant, is French or 
Indo-China, and further in that direction is Siam and the 
Malay Peninsula, Singapore being nearly fifteen hundred 
miles away. Luzon, the northernmost of the Philippine 
Islands, lies over six hundred miles sharply to our left. 
Back of us is Formosa, about four hundred miles away, 
while Tokio, Japan, is one thousand miles beyond For- 
mosa. San Francisco is nearly six thousand miles distant 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 21 

behind us and over our left shoulder. Now, with a clearer 
sense of our location in this part of the earth, we will give 
further attention to this place immediately before us. 

Hongkong is a British crown colony and was a " volun- 
tary " cession from China made sixty years ago, in settle- 
ment of trade difficulties between the two countries which 
had extended over a period of two hundred years. It is 
now the most important entrepot of the far East, with a 
native population of two hundred and fifty thousand and 
about twelve thousand Europeans. 

That water front, which you see, is lined with commodi- 
ous modern office buildings, granite quays and landing 
stages, around which queer native boats called sampans, 
manned by native women, ply their trade of carrying pas- 
sengers from point to point. 

In the center of our field of vision a distant mountain 
peeps over the shoulder of Victoria Peak. It is Mount 
Davis, nearly nine hundred feet high, and around 
its base is a Chinese cemetery. Between Mount Davis and 
the sea, on a gentle slope facing the northeast, thousands 
of little mounds, designated by simple board tablets, indi- 
cate the burial place of the victims of the bubonic plague 
which has prevailed for many years in this city. The 
cemetery is not an attractive resort. Neither the friends 
of the victims buried there nor leisure strollers are ever 
seen near the silent hillside; there even the dead menace 
the lives of the living. 

On the roof of this little house directly before us, in 
which John "makee washee, washee," we see squatted 



2 2 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

three coolies in the characteristic position of the lower 
classes, not only of China, but of many other Oriental 
countries. If the classification of men were made on the 
same plan as that of birds by ornithologists, these fellows 
would be styled perchers ; for, whether eating, smoking, 
resting, or in social confab, they are always in this couch- 
ant and ungraceful pose. 

We can see three large, new buildings on the quay, fac- 
ing the harbor ; the farthest of those buildings was a place 
of much importance during the Spanish-American war. 
It is the Cable building, and it was to that place that all 
war dispatches were brought for transmission after the 
cable was cut in the bay of Manila. 

We shall go ashore in a sampan, most likely sculled by a 
Chinese mother with a babe tied at her back. We shall 
land near those same buildings and follow a well-paved 
street toward the mountain side. The second street we 
pass, Queen's Road, the chief thoroughfare, is almost im- 
passable at times, so full is it with darting jinrikishas and 
sedan chairs, borne by chair coolies. We ascend the 
mountain slope along beautiful walks and through 
botanical gardens embowered in every species of tropical 
palm and tree-fern, and past well kept lawns studded with 
bright flower beds, until we have reached an elevation of 
nearly a thousand feet somewhat farther to the left than 
we can see, when we turn about and from our elevated 
viewpoint look back in this direction upon the busiest and 
most beautiful harbor of the Orient. This new position is 
given on the map of Hongkong and vicinity by the two red 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 23 

lines that branch north from the island, each having the 
number 2 at its end. 

2. Looking Across the Bay to Kowloon and Main- 
land from Bowen Road, above Hongkong. 

Now we obtain our first sight of the main-land of China, 
but scarcely yet do we see Chinese territory, for all that 
portion of the mainland now within our view is under the 
British flag, England having in recent years leased for a 
period of ninety-nine years (which an Englishman knows 
means forever) a peninsula embracing many square miles 
of territory, and extending many miles beyond those rocky 
mountains. T t he military and naval defenses of Hong- 
kong would be quite insecure unless England held adja- 
cent lands on the mainland shore before us. To the right 
and to the left of those bold barren mountains are sheltered 
bays from which a foreign fleet with modern guns could 
hurl monstrous projectiles to the very spot on which we 
stand. Mirs Bay, that memorable retreat of Admiral 
Dewey, when compelled by the enforcement of England's 
neutrality to leave the port of Hongkong, is only ten miles 
away, just behind those mountains to the right. We are 
now looking a little to the east of north. 

If we now look down to the harbor before us we may 
see, quite to the right and farthest away, the long black 
cargo ship on which we stood when we obtained our first 
view, and a little nearer we see a large white mastless hull 
roofed over and anchored fore and aft ; that is a naval re- 



24 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

ceiving ship of the station, to which naval men and officers 
are brought when transfers are to be made. 

A little nearer we see a long, rakish, crouching, de- 
moniacal looking craft with a skulking lowness in the wa- 
ter. Her appearance betrays her — she is a torpedo boat. In 
the center of our field of vision we see a large white ship 
with three funnels ; her lines indicate other purposes than 
the pursuit of commerce. She is plainly a warship. Our 
field of vision embraces only a narrow space across the 
channel ; throughout its full length there are seldom fewer 
than fifteen or twenty of these grim arbiters anchored in 
this focus of Oriental commerce, and they are mostly Eng- 
lish. What a wonderful country is England ! 

Across the harbor immediately before us, and to the 
right of the projecting headland, are situated the city 
and harbor of Kowloon, at which are dry docks that 
will accommodate the largest warships. We can faint- 
ly see the docks across that small bay beyond a sharp 
point of land, to the right of the city. It was there 
that several of the Spanish warships destroyed by 
our fleet in Manila Bay were taken for reconstruc- 
tion under the supervision of the brave hero of the 
" Merrimac," Lieutenant Hobson. The water front at 
Kowloon is lined with piers to accommodate the largest 
ocean ships. It is out there at Kowloon that all cargoes to 
and from distant ports are loaded and discharged. Vast 
storehouses, or " godowns " as they are named in the East, 
to accommodate transshipment, are ranged near the piers. 
It is estimated that the actual trade of the European col- 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 25 

ony, exclusive of the cargoes which pass through this port 
without breaking bulk, is over 100,000,000 pounds per 
annum. Many passenger steamers for Europe and 
America coal and embark passengers from the docks at 
Kowloon ; but the boats of the Pacific Mail, the Canadian 
Pacific and most of the great lines for Europe receive and 
discharge their cargoes and embark and debark passengers 
at their anchorage in the harbor, which extends a mile or 
more on either hand in the bay between us and the oppo- 
site shore. The harbor front at Kowloon presents a busy 
scene; rail-trucks are constantly thundering back and 
forth between the long piers and the godowns, coolies, in 
long lines, waddling under heavy loads carried on bamboo 
poles, pass to and fro uttering a weird, rhythmical cry 
which they think helps to dispel a consciousness of physical 
burden. At frequent intervals small steam ferry-boats 
ply between Hongkong and Kowloon, carrying first-class 
passengers at five-cent fares and second-class at half that 
amount. I must remind you, however, that the busy com- 
mercial port we sec across the bay is not the native city of 
Kowloon. What we see is chiefly the result of England's 
commercial development. A water-front embracing about 
three square miles was here added to the colony of Hong- 
kong thirty-five years ago. Before this section was ceded 
to the English, it had been a haunt for smugglers and all 
the lawless rabble around about. A few miles out among 
those low hills a granite bowlder marks the place of the 
surrender of the last of the Taipings. 

The native city of the same name is hidden among the 



26 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

low hills three miles distant and a little to our right. The 
native Kowloon is a typical old Chinese city of low one- 
story buildings with tile roofs and surrounded by a dilapi- 
dated brick wall. 

Those mountains in the distance are rocky and barren as 
is frequently the case near the sea-coast; but beyond are 
many fertile and well-cultivated valleys producing rice, 
sugar-cane, sweet potatoes, garden fruits and vegetables. 
In some portions of this peninsula that curious nut or 
fruit, sometimes seen in our markets, called the lichee, is 
abundantly produced. Along that mountain range to the 
left, distinctly visible from positions near us, is a long line 
of excavation that shows the beginning of a railroad that 
is to connect Hongkong and Canton. 

When we looked at Hongkong from the ship your atten- 
tion was called to three buildings, one containing the cable 
office; those buildings are again before us, down by the 
harbor. On the left is the Cable building. A little fur- 
ther to the left, just to the right of the tree before us, and 
about half way to the Cable building, is St. John's Prot- 
estant Cathedral, a pretty building erected over fifty years 
ago, with a seating capacity for eight hundred. And be- 
low us to the left of the tree we see the spire of the Union 
Church, erected two years before the former and seating 
about five hundred people. Looking at European churches 
in the Far East naturally reminds one of schools. Much 
encouragement has been given in that direction in Hong- 
kong, and the Chinese inhabitants are quite alive to the im- 
portance of education. Nearly nine thousand children are 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 27 

in attendance at the public schools. I once visited a native 
school here. When approaching the schoolhouse I was 
amazed at the great volume of vocal noise proceeding 
from within the schoolroom. On entering I soon learned 
that all the pupils were studying aloud, and very loud. I 
asked the teacher, who spoke intelligible English, if 
Chinese pupils always study in this fashion. He replied 
that " Chinamen believe study muchee loud remember 
more better." This is a thought for the teacher who is 
fond of hearing a " pin drop," and a plea for the boy who 
isn't. 

Within a few feet of us we see some of the vegetation on 
the mountain-side, and sections of the occasional pine- 
trees. My native boy supports himself against one as he 
also scans the panorama. I do not now remember whether 
his back presentation was from choice or necessity, because 
sometimes the lower classes can be induced to present their 
backs to the camera when vast sums of money would not 
induce them to face that dire instrument of evil, believing 
that when their faces are photographed a part of their 
identity is forever lost to them, and this becomes a serious 
matter in their ancestral worship. 



28 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 



CANTON- 

We have seen the mainland of China from Hongkong. 
We shall return again to the harbor, pass along the water- 
front to the left for a half-mile, and board a steamer for 
Canton, distant about seventy-five miles. After landing at 
Canton we shall go a short distance above the landing- 
place to the Imperial Custom House, from the roof of 
which we shall look back down the river over the route 
from Hongkong. 

Let us turn to the special map of Canton, Map No. 4, 
where we find our position and field of vision shown by 
the red lines which start from near the river and branch 
toward the right. The number 3 is found near the apex 
and at the ends of these lines. 

3. booking down the Chukiang River into the Homes 
of the 400,000 Boat Population of Canton. 

There is the Chukiang or Pearl River leading down to 

Hongkong. We are looking directly east now. Our 

large side-wheel steamer lies still at her dock. Two 

steamers of this class, besides several other boats that 

carry freight and a few passengers, ply daily between 

Canton and Hongkong. T.hese side-wheel boats are of 

European construction and are quite similar to those that 

ply between New York and Albany on the Hudson River. 

They have accommodations for first-class European pas- 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 29 

sengers and a separate accommodation for first-class na- 
tive passengers, besides an entire lower deck for the sec- 
ond-class Chinese, who are carried between the two ports 
at fifty-cent fares; first-class natives are carried for one 
dollar, while European travellers are charged at the civil- 
ized rate of eight dollars for the same short passage. 

We are looking due east, and the water before us is only 
one branch of the Canton or Pearl River. The land on 
the right of the steamer is an island five or six miles long, 
and beyond it is another broad affluent of the Canton 
River. That island on the right bank is densely populated 
and forms an important suburb to the city of Canton, 
which lies on the north bank and extends several miles in 
every direction from our point of view. 

The scene before us is one of the most interesting fea- 
tures of the myriad life of China's greatest commercial 
city. As far as our sight can reach we see boats; these 
boats are homes in which millions of human beings have 
been born, have lived and have died; and in many cases 
without ever having set foot on land. It has been esti- 
mated that in these floating homes from two hundred and 
fifty to four hundred thousand lives are daily rising and 
falling with the tide. 

The inhabitants of these floating dwellings are called 
Tankia, which means boat-dwellers ; their ancestors were 
also amphibians. They are looked upon as a class below the 
land people, and they have many customs peculiar to them- 
selves. Their house-boats range in size from fifteen feet 
to fifty and sixty feet in length. It has been estimated 



3o CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

that eighty-five thousand of these boats are about Canton 
and that, of this number, forty thousand are permanently 
located. On many of them pigs and chickens are reared, 
and in many cases when the smallness of the boat does not 
afford deck space for such stock, a box or cage is sus- 
pended from the stern to serve as a pig-pen or a chicken- 
coop. This way of securing comparatively free home- 
steads has seldom occurred to the poor of other countries. 
For centuries the Chinese have used boats for dwellings, 
and having a free anchorage their building sites cost noth- 
ing. A house-boat that will accommodate a moderate- 
sized family can be obtained for twenty dollars. A house 
for twenty dollars and a free site surpass all Western 
residential economics ; but for one hundred dollars a boat 
almost luxurious in appointments, according to the Tan- 
kia's order of life, can be obtained. 

Most of the boats we can see here are small. A thatch 
of palm leaves or a cover of matting over a portion of each 
boat protects the occupants from sun and rain and serves 
as an eating and sleeping place. We speak of limitation 
of space, as things "in a nutshell," but here in the small 
compass of a fifteen-foot boat there are births, deaths and 
funerals; there are henneries and pig-pens, and even 
flower-gardening, particularly on the larger boats, where 
considerable space in the bow is set apart for flower-pots. 

Sometimes European travellers who wish to make a 
prolonged sojourn in the vicinity of Canton, and do not 
care to pay the high prices charged in the one hotel, hire a 
comfortable house-boat which can be had for one dollar 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 3 1 

per day. In that case the native owners occupy a small 
space in the bow, where all cooking is done for the trav- 
eller without extra cost, with the additional advantage of 
free transportation to any point on the river. 

One naturally wonders how this swarming population 
of river-dwellers is maintained, and the answer is chiefly 
by transporting merchandise and by carrying passengers 
from place to place. In some cases daughters go ashore 
to work in factories as girls do in other countries ; but the 
factory girl's annual income in China would scarcely buy 
an American girl's hat. 

On that dock between the steamers and the shore you 
see several huge casks ; if you were on board the steamer 
you would find many of these filled with water and alive 
with large and beautiful fish for the Hongkong market, 
where they are delivered alive. 

Down the river beyond the steamer and before reaching 
that dark group of buildings we can see several ranges of 
larger boats extending from mid-stream toward the shore 
on the left. Out there we shall see floating dwellings of 
more beautiful construction. From those boats called 
" flower-boats " we shall look toward the city, on our left 
here. On the Map No. 4 the red lines connected with the 
number 4 show the relation between our two positions. 

4. A Street of Flower-boats— Places of Amusement 
and Debauchery, Canton. 

We stand on the upper deck or roof of one of these 
boats and look northward toward the shore and over the 



32 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

city. A range of flower-boats lies between us and the 
shore. These may be called the summer-gardens of Can- 
ton. They are often gorgeously furnished within; the 
woodwork is carved; the walls are hung with pictures 
and embroideries; wall mirrors duplicate all objects of 
ornamentation; the furniture is inlaid with mother-of- 
pearl; flowers, both natural and artificial, furnish an 
abundance of color ; and every night these popular resorts 
are filled with seekers after pleasure and recreation. The 
opium smoker with his seductive pipe comes here to dispel 
his cares with this insidious narcotic ; the gambler comes 
to these flower-boats to try his fortune at fan-tan or other 
Chinese games, for gambling is one of China's national 
vices. 

Although the Chinese are an industrious race, they 
often have an excess of leisure, and too much leisure al- 
ways creates a desire for a pastime or for pleasure resorts 
— " An idle brain is the devil's workshop/' As our idlers 
repair to a saloon or a summer-garden, so the Chinese 
idlers, as well as Chinese professional chance men, come 
to these flower-boats to win at cards, at dominoes, or dice. 
The passion for gambling is universal, and the stereotyped 
invitation " Buy a chance and get rich," is heard every- 
where. So the gaudy interiors of these floating dens of 
vice are nightly filled with sharpers, with idlers, with 
gamblers and desperate characters. 

Most travellers and tourists who come to Canton seldom 
spend more than two or three days in visiting the various 
places of interest. Many come on the morning steamer 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 33 

and return to Hongkong by the night boat of the same 
day. It is not a desirable place for a long sojourn. 
There is so much that is repellent besides the exorbitant 
prices of poor hotels that a single day may satisfy the 
sightseer; naturally, therefore, there is a set number of 
places to be visited in a limited time, and one of these 
places is the flower-boats. A question one constantly 
hears at the hotel is, " Have you been to the flower- 
boats ? " T.hey have a sort of Monte Carlo notoriety that 
makes them an object of interest to all travellers. 

These boats cost from five hundred to a thousand dol- 
lars, and are generally owned by the men in charge of 
them. At night these boats are illuminated brilliantly 
with lamps and lanterns, and patrons come and go by 
boats and along those projecting bows. Then they are 
not safe places to visit unless accompanied by a guide; 
but during the day they are vacated except by the owners 
and their families whom we see engaged in their daily 
routine of putting their boats in order for another night's 
round of feasting, gambling and dissipation. One woman 
is whipping the dust from chair and settee cushions. Two 
girls have spied us and are gazing quizzically at our 
strange manner and appearance. A little beyond, a dame 
with her back toward us is delivering the morning gossip 
to her neighbors on the next boat, while her liege by her 
side, with " turned-up pantaloons/' is on daily avocations 
bent. 

Beyond the small house-boat two men in characteristic 
crouching pose are plainly watching the " foreign devils " 



34 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

and commenting thereon in a foul sarcasm only possible 
among Chinese. We see near the same place a woman 
perched on the roof; we can see another in the distance. 
With us " Time is money," with the Chinese time is of 
little account, but space is money. The top of the flower- 
boat is a place for storage and for clothes-lines, which you 
see are poles. 

Although space is valuable and upper space is free, yet 
the Chinese do not evidently take to " sky-scrapers/' as 
you can judge from the single story buildings everywhere. 
Pawn shops, however, constitute a curious exception to 
the rule of low buildings, two of which you may see in 
the distance. These pawn shops form landmarks in 
Chinese cities and may be seen at great distances towering 
above all other buildings. 

Just before these flower-boats we have a good example 
of a small house-boat — its shape, its roof, and a projec- 
tion over the stern, where, as I have already stated, are 
placed the pig-box and the hen-coop. We have heard of 
countries where the pig is kept in the parlor; but in the 
house-boat space is more valuable. There is not much 
choice, however, for the porcine member in one case has 
more space, in the other better ventilation. 

You see those garments hung out to dry on poles and 
near them, also on poles, objects that might be mistaken 
for sheepskins; they are mackintoshes — rain coats made 
of bamboo leaves ; they serve their purpose well and only 
cost from ten to twenty cents each. 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 35 

Notice now a short distance over in the city an object 
which in other countries would be taken for a flag-pole, 
with an arrangement resembling the cross trees on a ship's 
mast. That pole you will see in every city and large town 
in China. It marks the residence of a mandarin, and it is 
often a convenience when travelling in China to know just 
where the mandarin, in a town or village, lives. 

We are here looking almost due north, and by follow- 
ing a northerly direction for several miles we shall find 
ourselves next standing on the northern side of the city 
and looking almost directly towards the spot we now oc- 
cupy. The red lines starting from the number 5 near the 
top of Map No. 4 and toward the southeast show our posi- 
tion and field of vision. 

5. Canton, the Vast Metropolis of China, from the 
Pagoda on the Northern Wall. 

We are now standing on a low hill on the northern side 

of the city with the city wall just behind us, and looking 

a little east of south toward the Canton River, which we 

see in the distance. The greatest commercial emporium 

of Asia is spread out over the plain before us, extending 

eastward and westward for many miles. That vast hive 

of human life is encompassed by a high brick wall seven 

miles in circumference, and within that wall a million 

human beings are toiling for a livelihood. Almost an 

equal number have outgrown the limits of the ancient wall 

and spread out into the suburbs and across the river. We 

cannot from this distance look into one of the narrow 

busy streets ; but this we shall do on our return. 



$6 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

Here we must be content to look over that vast urban 
world and reflect. A distant panoramic view of any city 
always leaves much for the imagination, just as when we 
look at the exterior of a single house, the interior life is for 
the imagination. Notice the low one-story brick build- 
ings with tile roofs. The brick is not red, but drab or 
'gray ; no paint can be seen anywhere ; very little is used 
in the whole empire. But you notice here that, although 
the Chinese are innocent of the expensive sestheticism of 
paint, they are not ignorant of the use of whitewash. 

We can observe an occasional clump of trees ; but no 
high chimneys. We can see no church spires ; but there 
are one hundred and twenty temples down in that great 
sea of lowly homes. There are fourteen high schools and 
thirty colleges. Of course, they are not Yales or Ox- 
fords, but they are somewhat educational. 

People are carried from place to place through the nar- 
row winding streets in sedan-chairs, and it is probably not 
unsafe with respect to truth to say that not one wheeled 
vehicle could be found within the entire range of our 
vision. 

If by some power the real inwardness of all the social 
and industrial life in this panorama could be disclosed to 
us, what a marvelous scene we should behold ! There are 
palaces after a fashion; there are hospitals; there are 
arsenals; there are ancestral halls; there are prisons; 
there is the imperial mint ; there is the execution ground 
where beheading is done ; there are scores of markets, in- 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 37 

eluding a cat-market and a dog-market, where these do- 
mestic friends are sold for food. There are seventeen 
thousand people engaged in silk weaving; and not in 
great factories, but in small dingy homes where hand- 
made bamboo looms turn out the delicate fabrics with 
which our stores are filled, and those magnificent brocades 
which charm our fancies. There are fifty thousand peo- 
ple making cloth ; and there are over four thousand shoe- 
makers ; there are great numbers of wood-carvers, stone- 
cutters and workers in iron, brass, ivory and silver. 

It is a world of ceaseless industry; it is likewise a 
world of vice, as I have already intimated, and has ac- 
quired an infamous celebrity for profligacy and corrup- 
tion ; it contains the greatest number of the worst speci- 
mens that can be found in the empire. A retiring viceroy 
once expressed himself thus about Canton : " Deceit and 
falsehood prevail everywhere in this city, in all ranks and 
in all places. There is no truth in man, nor honesty in 
woman." At one time there was an organized band of 
twenty thousand robbers. There are countless tea-houses 
and opium-joints and gambling dens. But we cannot 
gaze longer over this broad panorama of busy industry 
and unspeakable vice. 

We must now turn our attention in the opposite direc- 
tion; we shall step upon the wall and look northwest. 
Then we shall have an aspect of the landscape where there 
is no suburb beyond the wall. See the red lines marked 6 
at the top of Map No. 4. 



38 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

6. Panorama Northwest from, the Northern Wall of 
the City, Canton. 

We are at the northern edge of the river plain, from 
which a rolling surface extends to the mountains in the 
distance. We are looking out toward the great heart of 
China. We see a country where only the low land is cul- 
tivated and where the hills and mountains are without 
timber except for an occasional clump of trees. With us 
it is usually only the rocky character of the soil which pre- 
vents cultivation. In China there is another cause of 
neglected cultivation. It is the vast amount of ground 
occupied by tombs which can never be removed nor dis- 
turbed. The hills, both to the right and to the left, are 
old cemeteries. You can see the partially obliterated 
graves, but the ground is sacred for all time. Agriculture 
and ancestral worship know no truce ; these are the state 
and church in China. The area of valuable land occupied 
by graves has long been a serious curtailment of agricul- 
tural resources. This can be better understood when we 
consider that the venerated graves of ancestry have been 
preserved for thousands of years. 

Down in the little vale below us we can see examples of 
the care with which the Chinaman cultivates his ground. 
Here he is evidently a truck gardener for the great market 
near at hand ; you see how carefully the ground is ridged ; 
how the streamlet from the hillside is carried around the 
walled compound and along the slope at a proper elevation 
for irrigating his plot of ground; that it is continued 
along the base of the hill to his neighbor beyond, where it 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 39 

again does its work of irrigation, and so down the plain 
in the benevolent perpetuity of Tennyson's " Brook." 

We call the aborigines who built and lived in mounds, 
mound-builders. We might call the Chinese wall-builders. 
They built the greatest wall in the world — a barrier to 
repel the Tartars — and how long before that period they 
,were wall-builders we do not know. We know that from 
time to time to the present they have been defending their 
cities by prodigious fortifications ; that their homes within 
walled cities are also protected by walls; that even their 
country houses are encompassed in the same way; that 
our missionaries in China imitate the wall-building in- 
stinct of the natives and encompass their compounds with 
high, exclusive and defensive walls. Now notice the 
home of that evidently well-to-do gardener — how care- 
fully a wall incloses and defends all within; yet it must 
be confessed that these ramparts would scarcely be a pro- 
tection against Western thieves. Walls may do for the 
East ; but bullets or buckshot are necessary for the West- 
ern Tartar. 

Let us now turn about, pass through the heart of the 
great city and look into one of the narrow congested 
thoroughfares. 

7. booking into Shappat-po Street, from one of the 
Nightwatch Bridges, Canton. 

We are standing on a foot-bridge that enables night 
policemen to pass from roof to roof, and are looking down 
into Shappat-po Street, one of the principal business 



40 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

streets, especially for merchants who deal in European 
goods. Shappat-po Street is a curious sounding name in 
our ears because it has not been anglicized. Another 
street near by called Hog Lane is more intelligible to the 
Anglo-Saxon, and would scarcely be a misnomer if ap- 
plied to any of the streets, so narrow and dirty are they 
all. 

I am sure it will not diminish your interest in the scene 
before us should I state how difficult it is to photograph 
a dark, narrow, crowded thoroughfare in Canton. Be- 
fore finding this street, which is more open and better 
lighted than most streets, I had made three different un- 
successful attempts on different days to obtain a street 
scene. I had endeavored to hire policemen to stop, for a 
few moments only, the passing throng, until I could set 
my camera for a time exposure, as all streets are too dark 
for instantaneous work. The policemen said they could 
never stop the crowd. In this place I found an American 
Mission reading-room, from the roof of which I reached 
the bridge on which we stand, where some light penetrates 
into the street below. 

A little farther along we can see another foot-bridge 
over this street, similar to the one on which we stand. 
Policemen nightly patrol these roofs and cross the streets 
on these bridges. T.he buildings are low and the streets 
are closed by gates or barricades at frequent distances ; so 
that thieves can most readily reach the shops and pass 
from place to place along the roofs. A further reason for 
the bridges is that much industrial work is done on the 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 41 

roofs; clothes are here hung out to dry; frames are 
erected everywhere for the coloring and drying of cloth 
and yarn. You will perceive a halt among those passers 
below; they have plainly spied the operator, but do not 
suspect that the eyes of a stereoscopic camera ever look 
down into that closely sheltered chasm. 

Note how the vertical signs are suspended from poles 
extended from roof to roof. These characters have little 
resemblance to our Roman letters; they are read down- 
wards. The nearest sign-board on our left gives simply 
the name of the shopkeeper, Kwo Heung. Xhe second, 
in the center of the street, gives the owner's name, Tai 
Chung Loong, followed by words which in English would 
be — Sewing machine manufactured goods. T.he next ver- 
tical sign to the right belongs to Tin Wah Gok. Another 
to Wing Fong Lau, who, according to his sign, is a dealer 
in paper fans, panels and decorated pictures. Do you see 
the one horizontal board both in English and Chinese 
which tells us that artificial speech and song have a fas- 
cination for the " heathen Chinee " ? Here in the very 
heart of this great, strange hive of human life the phono- 
graph and graphophone are for sale. 

Should we go down and enter one of those stores, the 
doorway would soon be blocked by men and boys (not 
women, because very few are seen on the streets) who 
would stop and glower at us as we might stop and gaze 
curiously at a wild man from some strange land. The 
shopkeeper would not importune us to buy, neither would 
he attempt to repel the gaping crowd that fills his door- 



42 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

way; he would stare at us himself, smoke his pipe and 
keep his seat in statuesque stolidity and scornful indiffer- 
ence, as much as to say : " Not dependent on the patron- 
age of ' foreign-devils.' " Mongolian etiquette is not 
Caucasian etiquette; dissimilitude is written on every- 
thing. 

We have looked at the dingy house-boats and over a 
wilderness of paintless houses, and now, lest I should lead 
you to think that the Chinaman has no appreciation of 
architecture, no love of beauty and no artistic develop- 
ment, we will descend, enter a sedan-chair and be carried 
and jostled through lanes and byways for some distance, 
and then enter the court of one of the most beautiful build- 
ings in Canton. 

8. Splendors of Chun-Ka-Chie, the Ancestral Hall of 
the Great Chun Family of Canton. 

Many believe that nothing has contributed more to the 
vastness and perpetuity of the Chinese Empire than their 
practical recognition of a commandment promulgated 
both by Moses and Confucius, the fifth in the Mosaic 
decalogue : " Honor thy father and thy mother that thy 
days may be long upon the land which the Lord thy God 
giveth thee." 

According to Confucius, in his " Filial Piety Classic," 
"There are three thousand crimes to which one or the 
other of the five kinds of punishments is attached as a 
penalty, and of those no one is greater than disobedience 
to parents"; but filial piety in the Chinese cult is very 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 43 

misleading. It is not at all identical with what we look 
upon as children's obedience and respect for their parents 
in Western countries. The meaning would be better ex- 
pressed if the so-called filial piety were termed veneration 
for ancestors, both immediate and remote, which, of 
course, should naturally begin with reverence for parents 
living. Homage to ancestors antedates Confucius; but 
he has emphasized its importance, and now it may be re- 
garded as the religion of the Empire. To honor and com- 
memorate the family line, therefore, shrines or temples are 
erected in which memorial'tablets are placed to different 
members of the clan or family. This temple or ancestral 
hall before us has been erected, and is maintained by mem- 
bers of the Chun Clan, which has existed for some sixty 
generations. The Chun family were the founders and are 
still the proprietors of the Chun-li-Chai, the house name 
of an old medicine firm which has been in existence for a 
thousand years, and of which there are two establishments 
still to be found. This beautiful ancestral temple is a 
shrine at which all members of the Chun Clan, from the 
humblest to the highest, can place their memorial tablets 
for those who have gone before. There are three pa- 
vilions in this exquisite temple; in the center one, con- 
tributors of two hundred taels have the first privilege. 
The second pavilion is for members who can afford only 
one hundred taels, a third for those who are only able to 
pay forty taels. The walls are of brick, the floors of the 
courts are of granite slabs. The slender columns and the 
massive paneled balustrades are of gray granite. Notice 



44 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

the representations of grape-vines worked out on posts 
and panels. Even more elaborate still are the porcelain 
decorations on the roofs ; notice the fantastic designs that 
extend from the ridge of the roof to the eaves; also the 
roof of the arcade running across the court; these are 
all wrought in richly colored porcelains. Considerable 
time could be spent in examining the wonderful carving 
and grotesque decorative art in this charming structure, 
which is considered the finest in this part of the Empire. 
By a handful of " cash " (a small copper coin, seventeen 
of which make one cent) I induced those three juvenile 
Celestials to stand where you see them; but do not 
imagine that these boys are the only life near us ; just out 
of sight at our left, the court is well filled with gaping on- 
lookers, who were kept back with great difficulty. The 
gate of the temple had to be closed to exclude the crowd 
on the street. They are eager to see, but afraid to pose. 
You cannot conjecture what I regarded as the rarest per- 
sonal phenomenon that obtained in connection with that 
little trio; it was something seen everywhere in Japan, 
but seldom in a Chinese crowd or individual ; I mean that 
I caught once on one of those faces a genuine, roguish, 
first-class, fun-loving smile. I was afraid the boy lacked 
" filial piety." The Japanese are a laughing people ; but 
the Chinese countenance is cold, expressionless, and as 
immobile as that of the eternal Sphinx. The ready laugh 
usually denotes a genial nature, which is often lacking in 
the Chinese people. The boy and little child are a familiar 
feature of domestic life in China. Everywhere one may 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 45 

see very small boys and girls carrying and caring for 
younger brothers and sisters ; in this respect they are cer- 
tainly not only filial, but fraternal and useful. 

We have had a single glance into one court of this beau- 
tiful Ancestral Hall of Chun-Ka-Chie and will now, fol- 
lowed by a hundred gazing onlookers, turn out into the 
narrow street again and wend our w T ay toward the west 
to another temple, old and dingy, but which constitutes 
one of the chief attractions to all who visit Canton. 

g. In the Temple of Five Hundred Genii (founded 
A. D. 500), Canton. 

This temple was founded 500 A. D., or about fourteen 
hundred years ago, and is called the Flowery Forest Mon- 
astery, or Temple of Five Hundred Genii. At the early 
date of its establishment its surroundings probably made 
the former rural name appropriate. The exterior consists 
of a series of low, grimy buildings quite unattractive in 
appearance ; so we lose little in confining ourselves to this 
view within where you can see a phalanx of the celebrated 
so-called Genii from which the temple takes the latter 
name. These really are statues representing noteworthy 
disciples of Buddha; they are familiarly called Josses or 
idols. 

This being a Buddhistic shrine, let me, while we look at 
these odd figures, tell you briefly who Buddha was; you 
may easily know much more about this famous character 
than I do myself, yet it may be otherwise with some. I 
have visited many of the most noted Buddhistic temples 



46 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

in India, Burmah and Ceylon, and have often been sur- 
prised to find how much error exists with reference to 
Buddhism. For instance, many do not know that there 
are more Buddhists than Christians ; that about one-third 
of the population of the world are Buddhists; that 
Buddhism is numerically the religion of the world; that 
two-thirds of the population of China are followers of 
Gautama, or Buddha. Yet till the middle of this century 
there was nothing but vague notion and conjecture in 
Europe or America respecting the nature and origin of 
this world religion. There are over four hundred million 
disciples of the wonderful philosophy taught by the so- 
styled Buddha. There are eminent scholars who doubt 
that such a person ever existed, and believe that Buddha 
was only a metaphorical figment ; but Oriental authorities 
have no doubt as to the historical reality of a personal 
Buddha. They give the time and place of his birth and 
many incidents of his life with the utmost particularity. 
You say, What statues are these? They are not statues of 
Buddha, but statues of men who have been worthy dis- 
ciples of him. Many are inclined to laugh at these Josses 
or so-called idols, and suppose the Chinese followers of 
Buddha worship them; some of the more ignorant may 
do so; but intelligent followers do not worship these 
statues. 

You see small sticks, called Joss-sticks, in those pots ; 
these are burned before the statues, and this naturally 
leads one to believe this is idol worship. Buddhists offer 
flowers and oil and make reverence before the statues of 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 47 

Buddha, his relics, and the monuments containing them; 
yes, these things are done and offered as before stated, but 
not in the spirit of an idolater. We do the same with the 
graves and statues of our honored dead, and we do not 
call it idolatry. 

The object of the statue is to recall the example of him 
who taught the way that leads to deliverance. We see 
essentially the same thing in our Christian religion; great 
and worthy men in the church have been canonized and 
are called saints. We know how the mother of our Sa- 
vior and his disciples are worshiped because they were 
near to Christ. In the same way, these statues represent- 
ing noteworthy examples of Buddhism are honored by the 
followers of that great teacher, and the honor shown in 
some cases may resemble worship. They are intended, 
however, only to remind the disciple of those who have 
pointed the way to Nirvana, as they call a state of deliver- 
ance from the ills of the present life. 

More interesting even than these figures, however, are 
the teachings of Buddha, the tenets and principles of life 
that have won the faith and following of more than a third 
of the human race, a full account of which would require 
volumes; but here I can only mention a few cardinal 
points in his life and teachings, taken from a carefully 
compiled Buddhist catechism : 

(i) Buddha was not a God, but a man born at Kapilavastu, one 
hundred miles northeast of Benares, in India, 623 B. C. 

(2) Buddha is not his real name, but the name of a condition or 
state of mind; it means enlightened, or he who has the per- 



48 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

feet wisdom. His royal name was Siddartha; Gautama or 
Gotama, His family name. He was Prince of Kapilavastu. 
His father was King Suddhodana; his mother, Queen Maya, 
who ruled over the Sakyas, an Aryan tribe. 

(3) In form Buddha was a man; but internally not like other 
men. That is to say, in mental and moral qualities he ex- 
celled all other men of his own or subsequent times. 

(4) Buddha was born and reared in a splendid palace, and when 
he was but a child he seemed to understand all arts and 
sciences, almost without study; but he did not become a 
Buddha in his splendid palace; he saw the vanity and suffer- 
ings of human life and, in order to discover the cause of them 
and how to escape from them, he left his beautiful palaces, 
his beloved wife and only son, and retired to the solitude of 
the jungle, where he spent several years in meditation and 
fasting. At one time he was at the point of death from star- 
vation; after years of struggle he decided that the higher 
knowledge could never be attained by fasting or penance. He 
took food, repaired to an asvattha tree and determined not to 
leave the spot till he attained Buddhaship. Just before the 
dawn of the next day, the light of supreme knowledge was 
revealed to him and he saw at once the cause of all human 
suffering and the means of escape. The cause, in a single 
word, he ascribed to ignorance. 

(5) Of things that cause sorrow, he gives : 

Birth, growth, decay, illness, death, separation from things 
we love, hating what cannot be avoided, craving for what can- 
not be obtained. 

As a means of escape from these sorrows, he gives what he 
has called the Noble Eight-fold Path. The parts of this path 
are: 

(1) Right Belief; (2) Right Thought; (3) Right Speech; 
(4) Right Doctrine; (5) Right Means of Living; (6) Right 
Endeavor; (7) Right Memory; (8) Right Meditation. The 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 49 

man who follows these will be free from sorrow and reach 
salvation (Nirvana), 

Buddha has summed up his whole religion in one 
verse: 

" To cease from all sin, 
To get virtue, 

To cleanse one's own heart, 
This is the religion of the Buddhists." 

T,he following are five precepts imposed on the laity, 
in general: 

(1) I observe the precept to abstain from destroying the life of 
any being. 

(2) I observe the precept to refrain from stealing. 

(3) I observe the precept to abstain from unlawful sexual inter- 
course. 

(4) I observe the precept to abstain from falsehood. 

(5) I observe the precept to abstain from using intoxicating 
liquors and drugs that tend to procrastination (stupefy). 

This is a brief list of precepts for the laity. Other pre- 
cepts may be voluntarily added to this, and a special list 
is required of the priests. 

You say, how about transmigration or rebirth — is not 
that one of the peculiarities of their belief? Yes, the 
Buddhist believes, according to Alcott's interpretation of 
their philosophy, that " The unsatisfied desire for things 
that belong to the state of personal existence in the ma- 
terial world causes us to be reborn. This unquenched 



50 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

thirst for physical existence is a force, and has a creative 
power in itself, so strong that it draws the being back into 
mundane life. It is in reconciliation with science, since it 
is the doctrine of cause and effect. Science teaches that 
man is the result of a law of development, from an imper- 
fect and a lower to a higher and a perfect condition which 
is called evolution." 

Now, with this brief resume of some salient features of 
this world-wide philosophy, we will go on with our in- 
spection of this line of figures. You see that these statues 
represent Mongolianized types of Buddha as represented 
in India; they have the drooping, looped ears; they all 
have the sitting posture ; their heads are shaved after the 
fashion of Buddhist priests the world over ; they wear the 
flowing, loose robe of cotton, dyed yellow; they have 
Chinese shoes ; no two are in the same pose. Sometimes 
I think the great Buddha must have been lazy ; I have 
scarcely, if ever, seen a statue in any way typical of him 
that was not in a sitting position and did not represent 
him as suspiciously obese. These are certainly a good- 
natured lot of worthies, and some of them must be guilty 
of telling a good story, for, from one end of the line to the 
other, they wear a pleasant smile. I told you at the An- 
cestral Hall that a smile is a rare phenomenon in China, 
and I cannot help entertaining a mild suspicion that some 
slight consanguinity exists between the grinning boy at 
the former place and these sacerdotal figures. 

The interior of this temple is quadrangular, and every 
side of the square is flanked by double rows of figures, 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 5 I 

five hundred in all, and all blackened with the smoke of in- 
cense that has been curling up before them for centuries. 
But we have stopped here for considerable time ; let us 
betake ourselves hence to a great national institution, one 
of another type. See the red lines marked 10 near the 
right-hand portion of Map No. 4. 

jo. Examination Hall— Rows of Twelve Thousand 
Cells, where the Ku-Yan Triennial Examinations 
are held, Canton, 

You will scarcely think it possible that those low, shed- 
like structures, hardly more imposing in appearance than 
the cattle-pens in some city stockyards, are the halls in 
which applicants for examination for degrees that nearly 
correspond with our college degrees of Bachelor of Arts 
and Master of Arts are held. Yes, once in three years 
learned examiners come from Pekin to test here the liter- 
ary merit of those who aim to fill government offices or 
to obtain honorary degrees. The government of China 
has encouraged the higher education of the few by dis- 
pensing state offices and honors only to scholars, and the 
distribution is based on this system of elaborate exami- 
nations. As far as it goes it is an equitable system of 
civil service; for the poorest may rise to the highest 
rank next to the Emperor. China is the only country in 
the world in which titles of honor for learning are higher 
and more lucrative than those conferred on military offi- 
cials. The greatest general is outranked by a Doctor of 
Laws. The preparation for these triennial examinations 



52 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

is very unlike our preparation for a degree in college ; it 
consists largely in a cramming with obsolete Confucian 
classics. The applicant most likely to secure a degree 
is the one who has memorized and can best quote the four 
sacred books and the five classics of Confucius. Four de- 
grees are conferred. Examinations for the first degree 
are held in provincial towns throughout the Empire ; for 
the second, in each capital of the eighteen provinces. 
Those for the third are held in Pekin ; the final examina- 
tion gives the successful candidate a membership in 
the Imperial Academy. Every male, without respect to 
age or position, is eligible, and should a degree be obtained, 
even though no government appointment be the result, 
the possessor is not only honored in his community, but 
enjoys an immunity from the baser penalties of the law, 
such as bamboo flagellations, which are inflicted for many 
trivial offenses. The examinations are very rigorous and 
often only a very small number out of the thousands of 
applicants carry away the honors of a degree. 

Women are not eligible in these examinations ; indeed, 
they can hardly be considered eligible to any education 
whatever, as immemorial usage has placed them on a 
lamentable plane of inferiority, as is exemplified by the 
prevalence of female infanticide. 

The grounds of this Examination Hall cover about 
twenty acres and contain accommodation for twelve thou- 
sand competitors. We entered through a gate at the far- 
ther end of this causeway, and we are now standing on 
the upper floor of a building which contains apartments 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 53 

for two chiefs and ten junior examiners; also for the 
Viceroy and the Governor of the Province, whose pres- 
ence is required during the examinations. The examiners 
who are sent from Pekin are received with every mark of 
honor and ceremony. We are here looking southeast 
over one portion of the ground covered by the examina- 
tion cells or pens. You will notice the low, narrow brick 
structures with half-roofs sloping toward the entrance 
side, with a narrow alley or lane between them; these 
long, shed-like buildings are partitioned off into spaces 
five feet six inches deep, three feet eight inches broad and 
six feet high. Each cell, when occupied, is securely closed 
in front by a strong wooden grating. In these solid brick 
quarters the candidate is confined for two whole days and 
nights, during which time he is to complete his essay or 
poem. From a tower built for the purpose, a close watch 
is maintained over the whole area, and the utmost pre- 
caution is taken to prevent students from smuggling into 
their cells any available item of literature. These build- 
ings and the whole surroundings have a cheerless and 
dilapidated aspect which we can hardly discern here. You 
will notice, on the end of each range of cells, characters 
designating the number of the range and the cells in- 
cluded. You can see also the source of the water supply 
for the twelve thousand feverish and anxious competitors 
that are locked in those close, hot cells for two days and 
two nights ; I mean the cisterns with stone curbs that ex- 
tend along the space between the causeway and the build- 
ings. I need not tell you that the two Oriental specimens 



54 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

below us, with bare heads and poorly shod feet and stiffly 
akimboed arms are not defeated candidates for literary 
honors; they are but common coolies who, as you can 
readily see, impose on art when they pose for " cash/' 
I wonder if you have noticed while looking upon this 
scene that trees are deciduous about Canton? This be- 
comes an interesting fact when I remind you that we are 
here just within the tropics, Canton being only a few miles 
below the T.ropic of Cancer, and that frost seldom occurs 
here. The last snowfall, about seventy years ago, threw 
the inhabitants into superstitious consternation. 

We will depart from this place where the Literati are 
made, return to the busy river life, engage a sampan, 
which will take us out into the stream, where we board a 
large coasting steamer at anchor a short distance off the 
European Settlement. 

Our position and field of vision are given by the lines 
connected with the number 1 1 on the lower left-hand cor- 
ner of the Canton map. 

xx. West End of Shameen, an Artificial Island which 
Comprises the European Colony of Canton. 

Here we are looking slightly north of west, toward the 
west end of an artificial island, built up of sand and called 
Shameen (sand). This island extends east and west, 
parallel with the mainland, from which it is separated by 
a narrow canal. It is about half a mile long, comprises 
the European Settlement, and is connected with the native 
city by two bridges. It is a beautiful place, as we shall 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 55 

discover when we go ashore by those trees along the wall. 
Among the trees yonder you can see the west end of a row 
of European houses that extends the full length of the 
island ; many of them are much more imposing than those 
we see; some are four stories in height and surrounded 
by fine shrubbery and flower-gardens. In this line of 
buildings are all the consulates, where Li Hung Chang 
occasionally called during his official term in Canton. I 
witnessed one of these formal calls; it was marked by 
what we would look upon as semi-barbaric pomp; Earl 
Li was carried in his state-chair, followed by a motley 
retinue of soldiers, musicians, standard-bearers and a few 
horsemen on miserable and ill-caparisoned ponies. The 
whole proceeding seemed somewhat ludicrous and child- 
ish. 

Again we see the conspicuous pawnshop looming 
above the other buildings, as we did when we looked over 
the city from the flower-boats. You may see by the Bund 
at the end of the row of trees a low building, on piles ; it 
is a boathouse, in which the Europeans keep their pleasure 
boats. In all the Orient Europeans indulge in their home 
sports and pastimes ; they have the race-course, the boat 
club, the tennis court, etc. In that building you will find 
the most up-to-date row-boats and the long, slender rac- 
ing shells. Lying between us and the shore is another 
assemblage of house-boats; and here we obtain a better 
view of their appearance. They are short and broad, and 
the occupants are sheltered by a thatch of palm-leaves. 
At first glance one might think these boat people meant 



5 6 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

to tell us they were not the river pirates, which are so 
troublesome on some parts of the river. I am sure I have 
seen, during the war, both in the Philippines and in China, 
less dignified truce emblems than those we see here, dis- 
played by humble non-combatants craving protection of 
the enemy. You will observe here, again, to use a Celti- 
cism, that most of the boats are manned by women. In 
the small sampan one woman sculls and another rows 
with a single oar, while a third, sheltered by a prodigious 
bamboo hat, carries a child on her back, supported in the 
usual way by a strong cloth, which leaves the mother's 
hands free for manual work of any kind. These boats are 
all called sampans when used for carrying passengers, and 
whenever a European approaches that walk by the shore 
a number of them will at once dart toward him, vociferat- 
ing : " Want sampan ? " " Have sampan ? " in good Eng- 
lish; but one soon learns on entering a boat that these 
syncopated sentences constitute their whole stock of bur 
language. 

Before leaving this place I will direct your attention to 
only one other feature ; it is the color and character of the 
water in the Pearl River. In physiography, considerable 
importance is always attached to the character of the 
water in great rivers, whether clear or turbid; whether 
wholesome for drinking and cooking purposes or whether 
malarious (whatever that may mean) and fever-produc- 
ing. I have among my collection of objects from foreign 
countries, bottles of water from the Jordan River, the 
Dead Sea, the Nile, the Amazon and the Yang-tse-Kiang. 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 57 

These samples, when shaken up, show the amount of tur- 
bidity, and when allowed to settle the relative amount of 
sediment in those bodies of water. Rivers often take their 
name from the appearance of their water, as the Hoang 
Ho (or Yellow River) from the pronounced yellow color 
of its water; Missouri (Mud River) from its muddy as- 
pect ; but you will feel sure that the river before us is 
not named Pearl River after the pearly aspect of its wa- 
ters, for you can distinctly see the yellowish muddy ap- 
pearance and how the reflections are diminished thereby ; 
yet it does not seem to be unwholesome, and is much used 
both for cooking and drinking. 

We will call that little sampan and be landed about two 
hundred yards to the right of what we see here, on the 
wall beneath that row of beautiful trees, and look back 
toward the river to Hongkong again. Our position is 
given on the map by the lines marked 12. 

12. Mission Children, with One Tdttle American Girl, 
on "Respondentia Walk," in the European Settle- 
ment, Canton. 

% We are now in the European Settlement, on the walk by 
the water, looking eastward, down the river, with a group 
of mission children gathered under the shade of a range 
of stately banyan-trees. This island is only about three 
hundred yards in width, separated from the city of Canton 
by a narrow canal congested with every style of small 
craft. It comprises chiefly the English and French con- 
cessions, and is considered one of the most beautiful and 



58 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

healthful foreign settlements in the Far East. The con- 
sulates and the homes of foreigners are all located on the 
Shameen. The whole island is a bower of beauty; the 
rows of fine modern buildings are flanked by magnificent 
banyan-trees, such as you see here on the river-front. 
There are beautiful flower-gardens, tennis-courts, cycle 
paths and avenues of palms ; and all the feathered tribes 
of the neighborhood seem to appreciate European condi- 
tions and protection; these beautiful trees are all alive 
with birds of brilliant plumage and melodious with bird- 
songs. This particular promenade has a most euphonious 
name ; it is called " Respondentia Walk." But perhaps 
most interesting of all is this group of pretty and well- 
dressed Chinese girls, who have been brought by their de- 
voted American lady teacher from the other side of the 
river. The little party filled a sampan and landed on the 
Shameen bright and early, because I had promised them 
one of their pictures. They are children of the better 
class, well dressed and tidy and happy in expectation of 
receiving a picture. The missionary influence on these 
children is marvelous; they have no superstitious drea4 
of foreigners or cameras; they have been taught self-re- 
spect, and to respect foreigners ; they are girls, and girls 
in China, you must know, when they are fortunate enough 
to escape infanticide, have but meager consideration, anH 
they respond most touchingly to the love bestowed upon 
them by their affectionate teachers. It is worth while 
noticing how beautifully they are attired, in silken gar- 
ments, how carefully the hair is arranged after their fash- 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 59 

ion, smooth and glossy. Notice also the one American 
child on the end of the stone seat, and the difference in 
features between the Caucasian and the Mongolian types ; 
the stiff, straight, black hair of the latter, with oblique 
eyes, flat nose and rather poor facial lines generally, and 
the soft, flaxen ringlets that float about the prominent 
forehead of the former, with mouth and chin that are 
modeled on Hogarth lines of beauty. 

There appears to be the promise of a smile on the face 
of the girl next the river ; a scarce article in China, as al- 
ready mentioned. A few of them carry handkerchiefs — a 
missionary innovation, no doubt. Their garments are not 
ungraceful, with their capacious sleeves and a simple cord 
at the neck, instead of a stiff starched collar that enforces 
awkwardness of head movement; note also that at least 
one girl has her hair knotted on the side of the head, some- 
thing that is quite common with small girls in China. 
This bevy of Christianized little Orientals seemed much 
attached to their teacher, and clung to her skirts and fin- 
gers as confiding children do in Western lands. How many, 
such as these, have been ruthlessly sacrificed during the 
Boxer uprising! I have seen children just as innocent 
and attractive as those composing this little group, dead 
in the streets of Tien-tsin after the siege, and floating in 
the Pei-ho to be devoured by dogs. 

These little Christian girls will now return to their boat 
down there by the wall, recross the great river and tell 
to their parents the strange things they have seen in the 
foreign settlement. And we will take an opposite direc- 



60 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

tion, to our left, to a bridge that connects this foreign set- 
tlement with the native city. See the short lines marked 
13 on the map. 

13. Watching the "Foreign Devils. "—Gate of the Eng- 
lish Bridge, barring the Cantonese from the Le- 
gations, Canton. 

Here we have a perfect example of the stupid, sullen, 
gazing crowd that assembles instantly wherever a for- 
eigner halts for a moment; and this is not peculiar to 
Canton, but to every part of the country. We are stand- 
ing on the English bridge with our back to the island, and 
this strong iron gate is a barrier to prevent the natives 
from entering the foreign settlement. It is closed se- 
curely at night, and during the day is guarded closely by 
native police, who permit Europeans to enter the native 
city and duly authorized Chinese to enter the foreign 
quarters. The street along which this crowd is passing 
faces the canal over which we stand, and runs parallel 
with the island of Shameen and the river. I had, up to 
this moment, been photographing the busy scene on the 
canal from the bridge on which we stand ; so the crowd in 
a twinkling surged up to the gate to view the operation. 
Knowing that any appearance of deliberately making a 
picture of this gaping horde would scatter them precipi- 
tately beyond reach, I focus for the proper distance while 
the camera is aimed in another direction, swing instantly 
on the tripod, expose and return to the original position, 
without arousing their suspicion. T ( his I repeat several 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 6 1 

times for duplicate views without provoking a smile. 
Look over this melange of faces and see how many smiles 
you will discover. It is a facial mosaic of sullenness, 
coldness and cruelty — a study for the physiognomist. 
There are none of the upper class in this group ; a few 
wear caps, indicating a position above the majority, who 
are bareheaded coolies; there are a few boys; but, as 
usual, no women. We can see dimly, across the narrow 
street, a drug-shop with a modern lamp suspended from 
the ceiling, and shelves of bottles on two sides of the room 
which has its whole front thrown open to the street. 
This shop is considerably patronized by the Europeans, 
and usually some one in it can be found who can speak 
a few words of English. The Chinese, like some of our 
own people, have great faith in medicinal properties. 
They advertise and issue pamphlets setting forth the cure- 
all principles of their discoveries and preparations, and 
undoubtedly do a flourishing business in an empire where 
from fifty to seventy-five per cent, of the people are il- 
literate. 

Once I was taken by my guide into a first-class native 
pharmacy, where the proprietor presented me with a half- 
dozen small sample bottles of a preparation said to be. 
wonderfully efficacious in curing every form of disease. 
I can vouch for its powerful odor, but not for its curative 
virtues; I can vouch furthermore for the prohibitive 
duties put upon it in our own country, for while the six 
small vials were valueless to me and to everybody, the 
custom-house appraiser in New York, ignorant of the 



62 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

contents of the tiny bottles, called them medical prepara- 
tions and taxed me one dollar and fifty cents duty. 
Where ignorance is profitable it is folly to be wise. 

You will not fail to notice that Scott's Codfish man, 
notwithstanding his piscatory impedimenta, has found 
his way to Canton, as he has to most parts of the world, 
and, without doubt, he has brought with him a supply 
of the universal emulsion. Many medicines from the 
West are found in most of the native pharmacies. 

How strange we must appear to these fellows ! Their 
eyes are still fixed upon us, and they never weary of 
looking at us. We are ready for a change of scene, how- 
ever, and so will leave them behind the gate and stroll 
down the river to a place near the steamboat-landing 
called the " Dying-place." 

14. Dying in the " Dying- field," where Discouraged 
Poor are Allowed to Come and Die, Canton. 

Dying-places are ordinarily in homes or in hospitals, 
but this poor fellow has neither a home nor a hospital in 
which to die. We are here in a vacant space near the 
river — a sort of a common littered with refuse and scav- 
enged by starving dogs. It has been named the Dying- 
place, because poor, starving, miserable outcasts and 
homeless sick, homeless poor, homeless misery of every 
form come here to die. The world scarcely can present 
a more sad and depressing spectacle than this field of 
suicides; I say suicides, because many that come here 
come to voluntarily give up the struggle for existence and 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 63 

to die by sheer will force through a slow starvation. They 
may be enfeebled by lingering disease ; they may be un- 
able to find employment; they may be professional va- 
grants; they come from different parts of the city and 
sometimes from the country round about. They are 
friendless ; they are passed unnoticed by a poor and in- 
adequate hospital service; they become utterly discour- 
aged and hopeless and choose to die. Their fellow na- 
tives pass and repass without noticing them or thought 
of bestowing aid or alms, and here it is not expected; 
they have passed beyond the pale of charity; it is the 
last ditch ; they are here to die, not to receive alms, and 
no one thinks of bestowing them. The pitiable specimen 
before us is near the end — too near to heed the usually 
dreaded camera. I attempted to catch a view of others, 
who, having a trifle more vitality left, crawled away on 
hands and knees. His glassy, fixed gaze tells how soon 
his long, hard struggle will be over ; how soon even the 
grimy rags that cover his nakedness will be unnecessary. 
With a stone for his pillow, a sack for his garment, with- 
out food or friends, an uncoffined grave will soon be his ; 
he has begged a fellow mortal for work, but it was re- 
fused him. Would that the vast numbers who squander 
extravagantly and needlessly unearned wealth could wit- 
ness the innumerable instances like this — of existence so 
full of suffering that death is welcome. This far-gone 
case of destitution and misery is not the only one in this 
last retreat of human agony ; you see another in the dis- 
tance, probably a new arrival, as he yet has strength to 



64 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

sit erect. I have been several times to this haunt of 
agony and have always found several sitting or lying in 
different parts of the ground. When death ends their 
sufferings they often remain several days before the tardy 
authorities remove the body, and when removed it is 
borne to an unknown grave in the potter's field. Prob- 
ably you do not care to tarry longer before this harrow- 
ing scene in the " Dying-place." It is the darkest and 
the saddest, and we can find a brighter scene. Go with 
me to the Shameen, to the home of a faithful missionary, 
and there we can see a different face, a countenance il- 
luminated by Christian " Nirvana," a Chinese Bible- 
woman. 

15. A Chinese Bible-woman— Many of these Faithful 
Teachers Have Suffered Martyrdom. 

You cannot fail to note the maternal thoughtfulness 
of this face, the intelligence, the kindliness. Buddhistic 
asceticism has left her ; almost the Mongolian obliquity 
of eyes has deserted her since Christian light entered her 
mind and Christian love her heart. She has been lifted 
from the low level of her sex among her own people to 
the level of European culture and refinement, and that 
by missionary influence. Her adopted Christian religion 
permits her to smile, which she can do charmingly when 
not posing for a picture; it also permits her to shake 
hands Western fashion, on an equality with European 
men and women, which she does gracefully and modest- 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 65 

ly. Her new religion has removed her superstitious fear 
of the camera, and she is pleased, even anxious, to have 
her picture taken. What a change is wrought in these 
people by Christian influence! In China women are 
slaves and playthings. Wives and daughters are treated 
as animals. Their education is practically forbidden; so- 
cially they are ostracised; they do not appear in the 
streets nor at public functions, and I have been told that 
a Chinese gentleman is supposed to turn his back when 
one of the opposite sex passes on the street. Under these 
circumstances how much emancipation means to Chinese 
women ! Can we wonder that the law of love and equal- 
ity has transformed the countenance of this Bible-wom- 
an! A man, in China, may even kill his wife with im- 
punity, provided he obtains the sanction of the mother 
(his mother-in-law). Can we wonder, either, that the 
prayer of the Chinese wortian who is a Buddhist and be- 
lieves in transmigration, is often that in the future exist- 
ence she may be a man ? It would appear from views ex- 
pressed by the great founder of the Indian religion that 
his teachings did little to elevate the low state of women 
in China; for he refers to them in words which might 
afford grains of comfort to the misogynist and the hen- 
pecked husband. Here are his words: "A woman's 
body has many evil things in it ; at birth her parents are 
not happy ; rearing her is ' without taste ' (distasteful) ; 
her heart fears men; she must rise early and late, and 
be very busy ; she can never eat before others ; her father 
and mother begrudge the money spent on her wedding ; 



66 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

she must leave father and mother ; she fears her husband 
and has times of travail; if her husband curse her she 
is not permitted to get angry (talk back) ; in youth her 
father and mother rule ; in middle life her husband ; in old 
age she is at the beck and call of her grandchildren." 

This Bible-woman is seated on the veranda of the 
home of Mr. and Mrs. Nelson, located in the Shameen. 
These devoted workers in the field of the foreign mission 
were evidently much interested in this woman, and spared 
no effort to enable me to secure views of native types, 
who under their Christian influence had come to think of 
foreigners in a reasonable way. Bible-women perform 
a special work in the mission field. Mr. Nelson explained 
to me the difficulty of reaching Chinese homes ; only men 
can go to the services when general meetings are held, 
for it is not considered proper in China for women to 
assemble with men, or even for young women and ladies 
of the better class to be seen on the street. In order, 
therefore, that the homes may be reached and mothers 
and daughters taught to forsake their idolatrous ways, 
elderly native Christian women are chosen and specially 
trained and educated for this work. Elderly women are 
chosen because they will be tolerated and respected when 
young women would be insulted. When trained for this 
special work they are called Bible-women. This Bible- 
woman is fifty-three years of age ; her name is Mak ; she 
belongs to the middle class ; is a widow, and had an only 
son who died of the plague three years ago. The son 
had been converted to the Christian religion some time 
L. ol C. 



CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 67 

before he was stricken with the dreadful malady. On 
his death bed his faith in his new found " Nirvana " was 
so firm and strong as to turn his mother, who had never 
been in a Christian church, to the same source of conso- 
lation and hope. She applied to Christian women to 
learn about Jesus ; then she applied for admission to the 
Woman's School of the American Board. She was ad- 
mitted; but she could neither read nor write. She at 
once set to work to learn the Chinese characters ; she did 
not ask for aid, but supported herself by selling needles, 
thread, yarn, etc. She made rapid progress in reading 
and in Gospel knowledge. Mr. Nelson says it is a com- 
mon thing to see her with her Testament in hand going 
out from the school to sit at some home and tell the 
" Story." Her education necessary for the best work is 
not yet complete, but while now doing a good work 
she is still engaged in educating herself. She is very 
correct in her deportment, and, to show how quick she 
is to observe, Mr. Nelson tells that when she first en- 
tered their foreign built house she remarked: " Your re- 
ligion is better than the Chinese religions ; you are even 
allowed to move your chair about and sit wherei you 
please; while in a Chinese house chairs are not to be 
moved from their places against the walls." These women 
are paid not more than two dollars and a half a month, 
barely enough for food and clothing. In reference to 
their value and efficiency in the mission field, I give Mr. 
Nelson's exact words in a letter to me: "One cannot 
overestimate the amount of good done in China by a 



SEP 22 !*0? 

68 CHINA THROUGH THE STEREOSCOPE. 

Bible-woman, and there are many doing work which far 
outshines that of their sisters in this country (America). 
It can be said of many of these humble workers what 
the Lord said of Mary — ' She hath done what she 
could.' " 

We will now be compelled to take leave of Canton; 
and I regret that we cannot visit more places in this 
quaint old city. China is a great empire, and we must 
travel northward ; should you desire to make further ex- 
ploration in this great city on the Pearl River, many 
other stereographed places may be had of Underwood 
& Underwood that will enable you to return and visit 
again this great emporium of the East. 



SEP 22 l«» 



Map No 
Stereog 

Nos. 6 
97-1 Of 

Map 
Ste 
No 



*& °ff~~-S | ' Baste ' ' 



»u, £ 




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CHINA 



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.K* .6..,«>. SURE Sviturt.ni, O /»« 

EXPLANATIONS OF MAP SYSTEM. 






LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



OUR COMPL 



CHINA "TOUR 



005 662 412 



» 



consists of One Hundred Original Stereo- 
scopic Photographs of the more important 
places in China, arranged in the same 
order a tourist might visit them. M. S. 
Emery acts as a personal guide in an 
accompanying book of 358 pages. In 
this book are also given Ten Maps of 
our new patented system, specially devised 
for the purpose of showing the route 
and definitely locating the stereographs. 
Educators say that by the proper use 
of stereographs, with these maps, people 
may gain genuine experiences of travel. 



THIS SECTION 

is taken in full and without al- 
teration from the larger book. 



